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Posted: Tue 9th Jun 2026
16 min read
With it being London Tech Week and the launch of our own "Digital and AI adoption among UK SMEs" report, we are discussing all things AI support.
While Enterprise Nation boasts a wide range of advisers offering support across all aspects of starting and running a business, we wanted to spotlight those who are specifically helping members incorporate AI into their business.
With AI becoming more and more prevalent, these advisers are on hand to support you.
Read the full report here
Founder of Bykov-Brett Enterprises, Jamie and his team help support SMEs with leveraging AI and automation to help their businesses grow.
As well as many other areas, Jamie can support you with emerging technologies, such as AI, digital innovation and technology integration, and leadership in a digital, AI-driven world.
Automate the work nobody sees, never the moments people feel. AI is brilliant at the invisible admin: chasing invoices, preparing proposals, summarising research, tidying your inbox.
That's not where your human touch lives. It lives in conversations, judgement, and showing up for customers.
The businesses getting this right use AI to buy back hours, then spend those hours being more present with people, not less.
The mistake is the reverse: using AI to fake intimacy with auto-generated 'personal' messages while staying buried in admin. Automate the back office. Keep the front of house human.
Delegation, not conversation.
The shift already underway is from AI you chat with to AI agents you hand whole jobs to: research this market, draft these follow-ups, prepare this proposal, flag what needs my attention. You review and approve rather than do.
To prepare, treat AI like a capable new starter. Write down how your business actually works: your processes, your tone, what good looks like.
Businesses with documented ways of working will hand work over in days. Businesses where everything lives in the owner's head will struggle to delegate to AI for the same reason they struggle to delegate to people.
The chat box interface that most people teach you when they talk about AI is about 5% of what AI can do.
If your experience of AI is typing questions into ChatGPT and copying out the answer, you've seen the trailer, not the film.
The other 95% is AI connected to your actual business: your inbox, your documents, your calendar, your customer records, doing multi-step work end to end.
The good news is the chat box is a genuine on-ramp and not a dead end, but it's definitely not the destination.
But don't judge AI's potential for your business by the least capable version of it. That's like judging the internet by the fax machine.
Bisola is a voice AI implementation specialist, the founder of Atel Q, and the author of The New Voice of Business, which is currently the #1 bestselling AI title on Amazon.
She helps small and medium-sized businesses deploy voice AI to solve real operational problems, moving them from AI curiosity to AI in action.
With all the AI hype out there, one must go back to fundamentals. Looking at your processes first. We all know a power drill beats a hammer, but only if I know where to drill.
The best self-evident sign is when AI does tasks autonomously, whether you are there or not.
Voice AI, for example, answers a call at 11 pm while you sleep, and the booking is in the diary by morning. That is time saved, because the work happened without you there.
If I get a cut on my arm, I can put a plaster on it or a bandage, or even a clean cloth. The process to stop the bleed is the same, and the tools can be replaced.
It doesn't actually matter what tool is being used, so long as the process is right.
So, how do you avoid becoming too dependent on AI tools is by realising that they are just tools and getting your process right!
The most common mistake is starting with the wrong question.
Businesses ask whether they are ready for AI, when the better question is which specific problem they already have and whether a clear process could solve it.
AI adoption is a bit like recruiting an intern. You can’t just hand over your business to that new person with no induction and no sense of how you do things.
You need defined objectives and processes, and assign them to one piece in that chain. And take iterative steps and give more responsibilities as he/she grows and delivers.
Skip those steps, and you’ll just be automating confusion.
VIDEO: How to tell if voice AI will work in your business
In this session, Bisola explores whether voice AI is right for your business right now – and, if it is, exactly where to start...
Tarnia helps businesses adopt new technology and strengthen company culture through business psychology and people-first strategies.
She works with small businesses to confidently embrace change, whether that’s implementing AI, reshaping culture, upskilling teams, or improving internal communications.
Small businesses should look beyond AI content creation and focus on workflow automation, AI assistants and finding ways to use AI to fix the unique pain points they face.
The biggest opportunity lies in connecting tasks across sales, marketing, customer service and administration rather than using AI for isolated activities.
Tools such as Zapier, Make, Power Automate and Autocrat can automate proposals, onboarding and reporting.
We're also seeing businesses use AI-generated customer personas to test website copy, marketing messages and customer journeys before launch, as well as analyse customer feedback to identify trends and opportunities.
The future is less about prompts and more about connected processes.
Most business owners think AI adoption is a technology challenge. In reality, it's usually a people and process challenge.
The businesses seeing the strongest results are not necessarily using the most advanced tools; they're identifying one frustrating process and improving it.
The biggest wins often come from small, practical improvements rather than large-scale transformations.
AI should not replace your judgement, empathy or accountability.
Avoid relying on AI for sensitive employee conversations, complex customer complaints, legal decisions, financial approvals or situations where trust and context matter.
Your perspective as a business owner is key because AI can provide recommendations, but it cannot understand your relationships, values, business culture or the nuances behind every decision.
AI can support preparation, analysis and administration, but people should remain responsible for final decisions.
Businesses should also avoid automating broken processes. If a workflow is unclear or inefficient, adding AI often scales the problem rather than solving it.
VIDEO: Simple automations that run your business in the background
Tarnia explains how to set up step-by-step workflows that reduce admin, improve consistency and free up valuable hours in your week:
Tara is the founder of Tara Elzingre Consultancy and is on hand to help train you on digital tools that can be implemented into your business.
As well as supporting with AI integration, Tara can introduce you to practical tools and strategies that cut down on your workload, helping to save you hours each day – something very valuable to start-up founders!
Orchestration layers: The next wave of agentic AI will focus on agents becoming like teammates for business owners. This means AI will have the capacity to perform tasks without prompting across your inbox, CRM and workflows.
Hyperpersonalisation: The Premier League is looking to release personalised podcasts so you can get the latest and greatest that you want to listen to. This is becoming more popular with brands looking to build better experiences for their customers.
AI visibility: As we move away from traditional search engines, now is the moment for brands to focus on becoming visible on LLMs through AEO and GEO.
If you are copying and pasting between platforms, repeating the same prompts, manually checking everything, or relying on one person’s ChatGPT history to hold business knowledge, that is a warning sign.
As AI token usage increases, here are the questions you need to ask:
Can I automate this process?
Could an AI agent do this?
Do I have to continue to re-prompt for consistency?
Are you still copying and pasting?
Is this information business critical?
When basic tools become bottlenecks rather than accelerators, you need robust solutions like custom GPTs, API integrations, or specialised, industry-specific AI platforms that plug directly into your existing systems.
I would avoid using AI unsupervised in areas involving sensitive personal data, legal decisions, medical or financial advice, hiring decisions, safeguarding, disciplinary action, or anything that directly impacts someone’s rights or wellbeing.
Trust is now more valuable than data. With AI now learning from itself, deploying AI without understanding how that AI operates may cost you business.
I have always favoured using the phrase “Be the expert in the loop” and remind yourself that AI should not be placed above anything that is safety critical, legal or highly regulated.
AI is an opportunity for your business to scale, but it should not be at the cost of eroding trust with your audience.
Tara has hosted a few webinars on AI. Check out this one that explains how to use AI insights to make smart business moves:
Pamela is a business growth specialist with over 25 years of experience in marketing, advertising, and strategic development.
As the founder of Konqueror AI, she works closely with AI and cybersecurity providers to ensure businesses not only grow, but grow wisely.
Her focus is on helping leaders future-proof their operations, improve communication, and use smart tools to work more efficiently without losing their human touch.
Customers still value authenticity and human connection. The goal should be to use AI to create more time for meaningful engagement, not less.
The businesses that will thrive are those that combine the efficiency of AI with the trust, understanding, and personal touch that only people can provide.
If you find yourself constantly correcting outputs, switching between systems, rewriting everything it produces, or spending more time managing the tool than doing the work itself, it may not be delivering value.
A useful test is to ask whether the tool is helping you complete tasks faster, make better decisions, or improve consistency.
If the answer is no, then the technology may be creating complexity rather than efficiency. AI should simplify workflows, not complicate them.
Many small business owners think AI is only valuable if they completely transform their business.
In reality, the greatest returns often come from small, targeted improvements.
Saving 10 minutes on a task performed every day can create significant gains over a year.
AI is not just about automation; it is about augmentation. It can help business owners think, plan, research, communicate, and make decisions more effectively.
The most successful adopters are often those who start small, solve one problem at a time, and build confidence as they go.
AI should not be used in situations where empathy, trust, safeguarding, or nuanced human judgement are essential.
While AI can support decision-making, it should not replace accountability.
Sensitive conversations involving employee wellbeing, customer complaints, disciplinary matters, mental health concerns, or complex ethical decisions require human oversight.
Businesses should also avoid deploying AI simply because it is available. Technology should solve a genuine problem or create clear value.
If a process already works well and relies heavily on human relationships, introducing AI may do more harm than good.
